By
the time you’re reading this, Christopher Hitchens should have already given
his talk at UT (Oct 27th). Plus, October 8th, the UT
student group “The Veritas” hosted a debate called “Good without God? The
Problem of Justice and Human Rights”. The Veritas is a Christian organization
that says they welcome and honor skeptics. Those who say they desire more open
dialog and criticism of religious beliefs should be pleased they’re getting
their wish, and in our hometown to boot.

In
the News:

My
Alma Mater, West Virginia University, is in Morgantown, West Virginia. This is
also the home of the Morgantown Center of Reason, a local affiliation of the
United Coalition of Reason. Guess what they just did. They erected a billboard
that states, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” In
West-by-god-Virginia! See here: http://morgantown.unitedcor.org/

According
to friendlyatheist.com, the coordinator of this
event stated, “We want the public to see that atheists and agnostics are part
of the community, just as the faithful are… We have the same compassionate
values and, in most other ways, are just like them. We are hard-working,
tax-paying, moral citizens who care deeply about family, community, state, and nation.”

If
you’d like to see RET do something like this, speak up and volunteer to get on
the billboard committee and especially voice your opinion at our annual
membership meeting. We’ve ran into obstacles where some vendors simply won’t
put up the sign because it is “controversial”. But, I’m certain there are
vendors that will. We just may need to raise more money so we can afford the
locations of the vendors who will put up our sign.

Amazon
Review: Malcolm Gladwell poses a provocative question in Outliers: the Story
of Success, why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and
impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging
our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic
assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and
talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and
extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and
work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining
the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case
for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved,
some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

CALL
FOR NEW BOOK SUGGESTIONS! Members: Bring your suggestions for what the club
should read in 2010 to this meeting! Or…send them to Joan Omarzu at cjomarzu@charter.net

November
15th - Philosophy Sunday

Topic:
A Constitutional Global Governance – A Must for Global Security

The
relatively recent spread of militant fundamentalist movements, the easy
availability and accessibility of highly sophisticated weaponry, the potential
for space militarization and robotic wars, and most importantly, the rapid
spread of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological & nuclear),
have made it impossible for the world to continue tolerating the paralysis and
impotence at the UN. The most urgent issue of our time is: How will humanity
survive the unstable and enormously dangerous potential of a nuclear disaster.
It became not only desirable (as recognized long ago) but absolutely necessary
and urgent to create a new system of global governance that is based on
constitutional principles with legislative, executive and judicial branches,
international law and, most importantly, the necessary means and authority for
enforcing the law.

The
recent tremendous expansion of Globalization and the human capacity to damage
the world’s environment and deplete its scarce resources strongly reinforces
the need for such global governance. Achieving reforms of such nature and scale
will admittedly not be easy. We can expect many objections and challenges,
especially from dictatorial and theocratic countries whose leadership would not
like to lose their grip of power on their populations. We will explore the need
and merits of the concept, discuss various paths for implementation and assess
their chances to succeed.

Children’s
program: Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

SAVE
THE DATE: December 19th - Winter Solstice at Colleen and Greg’s!

A
celebration of the changing seasons on the longest night of the year to welcome
more sunshine! Enjoy music, games, a bonfire, food, and friends!

Colleen
and Greg will provide the food, salads, soft drinks, ice, and fun! Bring any
alcohol you wish to consume. Bring your friends and family!!

RSVP
by going to http://riverten.com/solsticeparty.html where
you can also find directions. They need to know how much food to purchase so
please RSVP.